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mercatfat: BraveLittleMeme: or is it a testament to your lack of appeal? read more

BraveLittleMeme: My experience differs greatly from the author's observations. My wife is not what you'd call a gamer. It's a rare event indeed when I can read more

Baines: Another thing is the original article talking about how expensive multiplayer with the Move is. All console controllers are expensive, arguably excessively so. The Wii read more

Ashkc88: Uhh, Sony ditched the old model design because it was ugly? The newer model looks exactly the same, just flatter. That comment just didn't make read more

Baines: I agree with pasmith. The Move controller looks *less* complicated than the Wii remote. The Wii remote is a mess of buttons, and has the read more

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[As Sony's PlayStation Move launches this weekend, our own Chris Morris gathers his thoughts about the debut of the PS3's motion control device, and the intuitiveness and needle-threading it requires to satisfy all parties.]

A little over a week ago, my wife fell asleep early when we were watching TV. I knew if I played Halo: Reach, it would likely get too loud, wake her up and I’d be in the doghouse for the rest of the weekend, so I figured this would be a good time to do some testing with the new motion control device for the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Move.

I had just set things up and was turning the system on when she woke up. She looked over at me, got a confused look on her face and asked, "Are you holding a vibrator?"

When I stopped laughing, I started thinking. If someone who pays absolutely no attention to the inside jokes of the gaming community automatically leaps to that conclusion, the Move could be in for a rough time with the mainstream world.

Aesthetics matter – especially when you’re pursuing the general audience. This isn’t news to Sony, which wisely dumped the George Foreman grill design of the PlayStation 3 for the slimmer model last year. But it’s a lesson the company seems to have forgotten when they were in the design phase for Move.

I should clarify: I’m not trying to review Move here, though I've tried it and its launch titles. Better minds will tackle that task. Sony, though, has made it clear that it hopes to lure more casual gamers to the PS3 with the device. It’s an admirable goal that could be quite lucrative for the company - but some of the decisions it has made along the way are real head-scratchers.

Part of what has made the Wii so successful, beyond its introduction of a new way to play video games, is that the controller isn’t intimidating. It’s sleek, familiar and simple to understand – even for non-gamers.

Move, which takes pride in its inclusion of buttons, isn’t as intuitive – and that learning curve could frustrate some players and ultimately hurt future software sales. And having to calibrate the controller before every game is another step that’s bound to frustrate the mainstream player.

There is, of course, a school of thought that Move isn’t meant for casual audiences – but instead more for the “tween” gamer, someone who’s ready to graduate from the Wii’s antiquated graphics and often simplistic play to a high definition system. Take-Two CEO Ben Feder, in fact, discussed that Tuesday at a Kaufman Bros L.P. Investor Conference.

"What Sony and Microsoft have really done with Kinect and Move -- especially Move, is provide a bridge for guys that are used to playing the Wii system with the wand and bringing them over to a HD system," he said.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that is Sony’s objective. If so, it still hasn’t given those people a particularly big incentive. Move’s pricing is steep – indicating Sony once again seems to be forgetting its missteps from earlier this generation. (PS3 sales only began to ramp up when the system’s price left the stratosphere.)

For people to get the complete Move controller set, which consists of the primary Move device, the navigation controller and a camera, they’ll have to spend $130. If two people wish to play cooperatively on the same machine, the price increases by another $50-$80. That’s not much incentive for current PS3 owners to pick one up – never mind the $400 bundle (plus another $30 for that navigation controller) for folks who don’t own the system.

With Kinect, Microsoft has never hidden the fact that it’s trying to extend the lifecycle of the Xbox 360 by several years. Sony has shied away from being that direct, but given the costs that went into developing the PS3 (and its mantra that PlayStation consoles have a 10 year life cycle), its goals are likely similar.

To achieve that, both companies desperately need the mainstream world to buy into these new controllers. Yet, both face some notable hurdles out of the gate. Kinect’s controlling mechanism is unusual enough that it has a curiosity factor, if not buzz. Move, though, has been rightly called derivative – and that’s going to make things even harder for Sony.

Hard doesn’t mean impossible, of course. Sony, if nothing else, has always taken a long-term view, which has served it well. Hopefully, the games it still has up its sleeve for Move will make the device more compelling. And hopefully, the majority of the buying public will think of something other than a sex toy when they see it for the first time.

Just to be safe, though, the design team that did the system’s successful makeover might want to start working on some early sketches for Move 2.0.

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8 Comments

Now that the PS3 and Xbox 360 have jumped to the waglan wagon I'm starting to worry about what's going to happen to the games. Are developers going to start thinking in ways to makes games fit the controllers rather than the opposite?.

If Kinect and Move don't flop, and most of the new games for them become too different from the ones we have today for PS3 and Xbox, I belive the "hardcore gamers" will abandon consoles and jump into PC gaming, as it seems to start becoming the last free bastion for the "old gamers".

A bit out of the topic, but I just hope Apple and Activision never release a conole.

Ah, the first time I saw this posted I had to register to comment, so I took the discussion to Buzz instead. But now I can re-post those thoughts:

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This guy makes no sense to me.

He seems to be forgetting 3 salient points: The Wii was ridiculed for its name, much like the Move is being ridiculed because it looks like a vibrator (?). Oh yeah, the iPad sounds like a feminine product...it'll never sell.

He says the Wii Remote is familiar and intuitive. It is now, but when you just saw pictures, before you used it, it was kind of foreign.

He decries the buttons on the Move. Um, the Wii Remote has a ton of buttons, the nunchuk adds even more.

And he complains that you have to calibrate the Move frequently. The last time I tried a sports game with the Wii & Motion Plus, I had to place the WiiMote flat on a tablet to calibrate it every couple of minutes.

I dunno that the Move will do well...it feels a lot like a Me-Too product. But I don't think this author's reasons for it not to do well hold much water.

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Since posting that I've actually used a Move, and totally call BS on the frequent calibration comment. It just isn't true. You calibrate once per game, and it takes about 3 seconds.

When I use the Wii Motion Plus, I have to calibrate it every couple of minutes, in mid-game and sometimes in mid-match. The Wii seems to sell ok.

Who cares if the thing's any good or if it even WORKS?! All that matters is MARKETING. If you market a piece of dog shit as a controller in this crummy atmosphere I guarantee you it will become the Next Big Thing.

The Move controller looks *less* complicated than the Wii remote. The Wii remote is a mess of buttons, and has the added confusion of being designed to be held in multiple ways (sideways like a NES controller, just held like a remote with maybe some waggling, and used as a pointer).

As for calibrating the controller before every game, most of my Wii games with pointer functionality also have a calibration option somewhere, at least any game that looks for any accuracy beyond just pointing in some general area. Maybe something like Wii Boxing could have benefited from calibration, because it was horrible at detecting only a few basic moves. Mind, most Wii games don't need calibration because the developers just tagged some form of vague waggle or very basic detection. Perhaps if the Wii's motion/pointer hardware were better, developers would ask more of it, and more calibration would also then be required to deliver it.

And the claim that Sony hasn't been direct about trying to extend the life of the PS3? Sony was pretty straightforward with the PS2 that they were expecting their consoles to last for years longer than what people had come to believe to be the console cycle. The PS3 was designed from the start with a long life in mind. Sony has shown no signs of change of that policy since, nor any reason to do so.

And I have to ask, why would anyone decide testing motion controllers as the *quiet* option that wouldn't wake the wife?

Uhh, Sony ditched the old model design because it was ugly? The newer model looks exactly the same, just flatter. That comment just didn't make sense to me.

That being said, there is no other way the controller could look since it based around the idea of using a mocap ball for motion tracking. Anything that is rod shaped is always said to look like a dildo or vibrator. It wasn't funny when I was in high school, it wasn't funny when the Wii was released, and it's not funny when applied to the PS Move.

Another thing is the original article talking about how expensive multiplayer with the Move is.

All console controllers are expensive, arguably excessively so. The Wii also is pretty expensive when it comes to multiplayer. Each person needs at least one Wii remote. Many games require a nunchuck as well. Then there are also the games that want a classic controller, and now the classic controller pro. And what about that Wii Fit pad? Good thing the steering wheel and the Zapper were nothing but unnecessary plastic shells, or it would have been even worse outfitting four people for Mario Kart or the lightgun games.

My wife is not what you'd call a gamer. It's a rare event indeed when I can get her to show some interest in anything game-related.

Well, as soon as she saw the big pink glowy orb on the Move controller, she squealed in delight: she was sold, instantly. As a result we spent the whole evening playing Tumble and working up a sweat on Gladiator Challenge.

If that's not a testament to the Move's mainstream appeal, I don't know what is.